Ionia Volcano

Unique sights between Omaha and Sioux City
were described in the morning edition of the Omaha Daily Bee,
on July 7, 1874. A letter writer, identified only as "RANGER,"
[the pen name of John Harwood Pierce] described a Dixon County
area that had attracted the attention of Lewis and Clark in 1804
and that of later sightseers and amateur geologists.

RANGER visited what he called the "Ionia volcana,"
about half a mile from the village of Ionia. "Mr. S. T.
Hill, who is the general business man of this portion of the
country, kindly volunteered to act as guide. He took us in his
skiff and rowed up the [Missouri] river to a bank towering up
from the water's edge full two hundred feet. There, on a narrrow
plateau about half way up the bluff, we saw and smelt the sulphurous
vapor which indicated the spot we sought. On arriving at the
plateau we saw several fissures in the clay, from which issued
vapor so hot that the ground in the vicinity was too warm to
rest the hand on comfortably. On listening, we could hear strange
sounds under our feet, like the distant roar of a blast furnace.

"Mr. Hill said that it was considerably
hotter than when he was there a few days before, and that the
heat has been continuously increasing. Some time before this
'hot-hole' was discovered a vast land slide occurred, which is
supported by the internal fires which have now found a breathing
place."

RANGER also called attention to fossil
finds in the area: "After examining the embryo Aetna our
attention was called to the bluff, which is of slate and hard
clay, with occasional gypsum formation and is full of petrifaction
of all kinds. Half way up the bluff we dug out of the slate a
petrified backbone, showing every veterbral [sic] and
not scarred or injured in the least, and immediately along side
we found imbedded in soft rock a handful of shell fish, and there
is no scarcity to these petrifactions, but the bluffs is literally
full of them. It was from one of these bluffs that Mr. Joseph
Brewer dug out the wonderful petrified monster, which is now
on its travels making a fortune for some enterprising side showman."

Part of the site of RANGER's "Ionia
volcana" collapsed into the Missouri River in 1877. By 1882
historian A. T. Andreas reported that little of interest remained
there.